


Paper Wings

by likebunnies



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, I will never stop trying to fix it, Post-Season/Series 03, Wishes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebunnies/pseuds/likebunnies
Summary: Ichabod Crane will try anything to get Abbie back. Will this be the one that works?





	1. A Thousand Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> I still don't accept that Ichabod Crane wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to get Abbie back. Nor do I accept the fact that he didn't even mourn her at all. In my mind, he would have stopped at nothing to be with her and spent any hours alone thinking about how things could have been. Until he found what would change it all.

Since that unthinkable day, Crane had tried a hundred things to change what had happened and this was just one more crazy idea. In the end, he knew it wouldn't work any better than all the other absurd ideas he had tried but he still had to try. He would attempt anything and everything until he became too old and feeble and could no longer remember what he was trying for anymore. 

He carefully folded and creased the paper again and again. With each fold, he said her name though there was no one to hear his quiet plea to the universe. 

“Abbie,” he said as he made another fold. “Abbie.”

Over and over and over. 

“Abbie.”

Maybe his history with the supernatural would help. Maybe the fact that he was brought back from the dead himself would somehow make this work. 

Or else it was just more folly. One more fool's errand. 

Another fold. Another crease. 

“Abbie.” 

There was no way folding one thousand origami paper cranes was going to bring her back. It was ridiculous. A thousand cranes and one wish. He would wish for Abbie. It wouldn't work but he would wish. It was preposterous. Still he would wish. 

And still he folded. Folded and ignored his phone for a few days. Ignored the rest of the world. Hardly ate anything, just some cold leftover Chinese food or a sandwich as he stood over the sink. He folded until his fingers were sore. What did he have to lose? Not his soul anymore. Nothing. He had nothing to lose. He lost everything already. 

“Abbie.” 

When he would finish another tiny crane, he would look at it closely, checking that it was perfect. The origami paper was in various shades that he knew Abbie would like. Colors that reminded him of her and the house they once shared. That house that they should still be in together. Sharing space. Sharing a room. Sharing a bed. 

Each crane also made him realize just how witless he had been. He had loved her more than he had ever thought possible yet he never told her. He should have done that and so much more. He had been scared of ruining what they had but now he no longer even had that. He should have told her so many things. Now here he was folding one more paper square and hoping for a miracle. 

When he got to a certain number of cranes, he would string them together and then hang them over his bed. At night, he would stare up at them and be reminded of all the things he didn't do and of how much he needed her back. 

“Abbie,” he would say into the darkness as he fell into sleep. 

A few days after he began this project, he folded the last paper crane. After so much practice, it was the best one yet. It was tiny and delicate and yet strong. He carefully assembled another string with the last batch he had made and hung this one with the others, a thousand paper birds floating over his bed. Two thousand paper wings to carry off one wish. 

Crane got ready for bed, putting on his nightshirt before brushing his teeth in the dim bathroom. He looked in the mirror, still not used to seeing himself with shorter hair. Almost modern but not quite. The person who was supposed to lead him through the 21st century was gone. 

He crawled into his bed, knowing that nothing was going to bring her back. Not one wish. Not even a billion paper birds. 

But he still whispered “Abbie” into the night before closing his eyes under all those little cranes, her name carrying with it all the desperation and heartbreak one man could feel, their tiny wings carrying his wish somewhere. She was his only wish in this world. 

He fell asleep with images of her filling his dreams. Even if the dreams were harrowing, it was better than the waking nightmare he lived daily without her by his side. This night, the dreams were lovely. They were side by side on her porch swing once more and she was trying to tell him something but he couldn't quite understand it. She looked as frustrated as he felt and then she placed a hand on his arm, assuring him of something. Of what, he did not know. 

He was woken suddenly by a knocking on his door. Crane wondered for a second which one of his neighbors might have locked themselves out of their place this time and stumbled to his doorstep. Then he saw all the paper cranes soaring above him. 

Crane let himself hope. Let himself believe impossible wishes were answered. 

He only said one word as he rushed to the door. 

“Abbie?” 

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

To Be Continued...


	2. One Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crane has only one wish.

The knock on his door was loud and insistent and at first Crane assumed that one of his neighbors had locked herself out of her apartment again and showed up at his doorstep for his ability to pick a lock quickly and discreetly. 

He opened his eyes and looked above his bed. So many strings of paper cranes were there, slowly twisting in the dusty shaft of light that somehow fought its way through the unwashed window. A thousand birds, each made by him in a matter of days. A thousand for one wish...

Abbie. 

He jumped out of bed and rushed toward the door, calling out her name as he went. He fumbled with the chain and the deadbolt and when his hand reached the doorknob, he froze in place. He was scared he'd find only Isobel from down the hall begging for some sugar. He was afraid to find something else, too. Something that he should have never wished into existence. He could just go back to bed but he had to know. Had to see. Crane took a deep breath and turned the knob. 

When he saw who was standing in the dim light of the hallway, his knees buckled and the last thing he remembered was the the loud cracking sound his head made as it and the rest of him hit the floor. 

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

“Your soul? Crane, seriously, your mother fucking _soul_?” His eyes had barely opened again and she was questioning him. Loudly. Maybe even screaming at him. 

“How are you here?” he finally managed to ask, blinking now. “Did it work?”

“I've been given special dispensation to return to earth and kick your ass,” she answered. 

“They allow you to talk like this in heaven?” 

“No. I have to get it all out while I'm here,” Abbie answered, rolling her eyes at him. “I was a Witness. They let me talk however I want. And yes, your wish reached me. They asked me what I wanted to do about it. About you.” 

He stood up from the spot where she had dragged him and felt that his head was still spinning so he motioned for her to sit on one of the chairs he assembled himself. He sat opposite of her, pushing his gown down between his legs to maintain a sense of propriety. 

“Explain... I need answers...” Crane said, unable to stop staring at her. She looked good. No, she looked great. And alive. It might have been his imagination or because he bumped his head, but she was not only very, very alive but... glowing. 

“First, I got word that you sold your soul to the devil. Crane? What the hell? I mean, really? What were you doing making deals with the devil?” 

“You're allowed to sacrifice everything but I can do not such thing?” 

“You will spend eternity in hell.”

“What do you think I'm already doing without you?” he responded to her rather saucily. In all the dreams he ever had where he had a chance to talk to her again, it certainly didn't go like this. He never imagined he'd be in his nightshirt while she berated him about his lack of a soul. No. He always imagined better. 

“So you sold your soul? To get back at me?” 

“No, to save the world.”

“Ah.” 

“It's really quite an elaborate story but since you knew about my soul issue, I'm sure you know what happened,” he asked, cocking an eyebrow into the air. How did she know anyway? Why had his wish worked now when nothing else had worked before? 

“I don't know all the details. As soon as I knew you were going to be okay, I didn't feel the need to watch everything anymore. I couldn't watch it all,” Abbie said. Crane's eyebrow didn't give an inch. 

“You were under the impression I was doing okay?” he asked. “At what point did I look okay?” 

“I saw you... when you found... you looked okay,” Abbie said. 

“I have been anything but okay since you died, Lieutenant. Look at this place. Look at me,” he said, waving his hand at the tiny hole of an apartment he lived in. He hadn't removed the trash in days and there were little squares of paper still covering the surfaces. The sun had to fight its way through the grime to cast any light in his dim quarters. “This is merely a physical manifestation of what I feel like without you. I have to work with people who think I have a family because I have them, but without you, there is no such thing. Miss Jenny...”

“My sister's around here?”

“She was for a while. Miss Jenny helped me find this place. Helped me try to start over again. Now she's in China, I believe. Or Tibet. I haven't heard from her in weeks,” Crane said. Abbie looked thoughtfully out one of the grimy windows at nothing. “So, how did you manage this return?”

“I only have one day, Crane. I have 24 hours in which to help you get your soul back. Then I have to return... home,” she said softly, still looking out the window and not at him. 

“And I'm to suffer all over again? To have you and to lose you one more time? Good thing my soul is gone for it wouldn't be able to bear going through that again,” he said, and she focused in on him. 

“We're going to get it back.”

“Why would it matter?”

She didn't answer him right away. She sighed and shook her head and for a second he thought perhaps she was going to give up and walk right out the door and back to heaven. She didn't. 

“Because goddammit, Crane, I didn't get to spend enough time with you here on earth! I was hoping for an eternity afterwards. We might only have 24 hours... actually, we're down to 23½ now. We have to fix this or else–”

He was out of his chair and kneeling before her so fast she looked shocked. His hands were wrapped around hers as he sat back on his heels and told her everything. He wasn't going to lose her again without telling her the truth about how he felt. No stupid kiss on the hand. No bow. None of that was nearly enough to express his feelings for her. 

Crane confessed everything. How he had been pretending to be okay so the people around him didn't worry. Yet sometimes, in the darkest hour of the night, he was ready to end it all. How, before he gave up his soul, he welcomed death and hoped there would be no return this time. How there were days he couldn't breathe without her but didn't have anyone to tell that to so he had to pretend that he was okay even though he wanted to lay down on her grave and cry until he was no more. 

But no, there was a child. He had to deal with a child and her mother and Jenny and all these people and he couldn't die and this wasn't about him but about her and all the things he should have told her. That he should have died instead of her. Would gladly die now instead of her. That he didn't want her forgiveness or assurances but wanted her to berate him for letting her die. For not coming up with something else. 

_There was always something else. There was always another way._

“My death can't be changed. We can't change that part of the past, Crane. But we can change the future,” Abbie whispered, sliding off the chair to her knees on floor before him. She took his hands in hers and looked puzzled. “What happened to your hands? What have you been doing?” 

“Folding a thousand paper cranes,” he said, realizing just how ridiculous that sounded. “For one wish.” 

“You should have wished for your soul,” Abbie said, tenderly bringing his hands to her mouth and kissing his sore, dry fingertips. 

“You are my soul,” he whispered as she continued to brush her soft, perfect lips over his fingertips. “You are everything. You will always be my one wish in life.”

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

To Be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not certain this needed more than the first chapter but there you go. I did it anyway.


End file.
